Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-r4mrb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-09T23:42:11.082Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

29 - Universal Darwinism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

Mark A. Bedau  and
Carol E. Cleland
By
Richard Dawkins
Mark A. Bedau
Affiliation:
Reed College, Oregon
Carol E. Cleland
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder
Get access

Summary

It is widely believed on statistical grounds that life has arisen many times all around the universe (Asimov 1979; Billingham 1981). However varied in detail alien forms of life may be, there will probably be certain principles that are fundamental to all life, everywhere. I suggest that prominent among these will be the principles of Darwinism. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is more than a local theory to account for the existence and form of life on Earth. It is probably the only theory that can adequately account for the phenomena that we associate with life.

My concern is not with the details of other planets. I shall not speculate about alien biochemistries based on silicon chains, or alien neurophysiologies based on silicon chips. The universal perspective is my way of dramatizing the importance of Darwinism for our own biology here on Earth, and my examples will be mostly taken from Earthly biology. I do, however, also think that “exobiologists” speculating about extraterrestrial life should make more use of evolutionary reasoning. Their writings have been rich in speculation about how extraterrestrial life might work, but poor in discussion about how it might evolve. This essay should, therefore, be seen firstly as an argument for the general importance of Darwin's theory of natural selection; secondly as a preliminary contribution to a new discipline of “evolutionary exobiology.”

Type
Chapter
Information
The Nature of Life
Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science
 , pp. 360 - 373
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Asimov, I. (1979). Extraterrestrial civilizations. London: Pan.Google Scholar
Atkins, P. W. (1981). The creation. Oxford: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Bateson, P. P. G. (1976). Specificity and the origins of behavior. Advances in the Study of Behavior, 6, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billingham, J. (1981). Life in the universe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Burnet, P. M. (1969). Cellular immunology. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.Google Scholar
Cairns-Smith, A. G. (1982). Genetic takeover. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Crick, F. H. C. (1982). Life itself. London: MacDonald.Google Scholar
Danchin, A. (1979). Themes de la biologie: Theories instructives et theories selectives. Revue des Questions Scientifiques, 150, 151–164.Google Scholar
Darwin, C. R. (1859/1968). The origin of species. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Dawkins, M. (1980). Animal suffering: The science of animal welfare. London: Chapman & Hall.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982a). The extended phenotype. Oxford: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. (1982b). The necessity of Darwinism. New Scientist, 94, 130–132.Google Scholar
Eldredge, N. & Gould, S. J. (1972). Punctuated equilibria: An alternative to phyletic gradualism. In Schopf, T. J. M. (Ed.), Models in paleobiology (pp. 82–115). San Francisco: Freeman-Cooper.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. A. (1958). The genetical theory of natural selection. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Gillespie, N. C. (1979). Charles Darwin and the problem of creation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldschmidt, R. (1940). The material basis of evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1980). The panda's thumb. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J. (1982). The meaning of punctuated equilibrium and its role in validating a hierarchical approach to macroevolution. In Milkman, R. (Ed.), Perspectives on evolution (pp. 83–102). Sunderland, MA: Sinauer.Google Scholar
Ho, M.-W. & Saunders, P. T. (1981). Adaptation and natural selection: Mechanism and teleology. In Barker, C. M., Birke, L., Muir, A D., and Rose, S. P. R. (Eds.), Towards a liberatory biology (pp. 85–102). London: Allison & Busby.Google Scholar
Hoyle, F. & Wickramasinghe, N. C. (1981). Evolution from space. London: J. M. Dent.Google Scholar
Kimura, M. (1968). Evolutionary rate at the molecular level. Nature, 217, 624–626.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koestler, A. (1967). The ghost in the machine. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Lewin, R. (1980). Evolutionary theory under fire. Science, 210, 883–887.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lewontin, R. C. (1970). The units of selection. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 1, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewontin, R. C. (1979). Sociobiology as an adaptationist program. Behavioral Science, 24, 5–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lorenz, K. (1966). Evolution and modification of behavior. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Maynard Smith, J. (1969). The status of neo-Darwinism. In Waddington, C. H. (Ed.), Towards a theoretical biology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Mayr, E. (1982). The growth of biological thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, J. (1982). Darwin for beginners. London: Writers & Readers.Google Scholar
Paley, W. (1828). Natural theology (2nd ed.). Oxford: J. Vincent.Google Scholar
Pringle, J. W. S. (1951). On the parallel between learning and evolution. Behaviour, 3, 90–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raup, D. M. (1977). Stochastic models in evolutionary palaeontology. In Hallam, A. (Ed.), Patterns of evolution (pp. 59–78). Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Ridley, M. (1982). Coadaptation and the inadequacy of natural selection. British Journal for the History of Science, 15, 45–68.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rushton, W. A. H. (1961). Peripheral coding in the nervous system. In Rosenblith, W. A. (Ed.), Sensory communication (pp. 169–181). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, S. M. (1981). The new evolutionary timetable. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Stebbins, G. L. (1982). Darwin to DNA, molecules to humanity. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Steele, E. J. (1979). Somatic selection and adaptive evolution. Toronto: Williams & Wallace.Google Scholar
Thorpe, W. H. (1963). Learning and instinct in animals (2nd ed.). London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Turner, J. R. G. (1982). Review of R. J. Berry, Neo-Darwinism. New Scientist, 94, 160–162.Google Scholar
Wright, S. (1980). Genie and organismic selection. Evolution, 34, 825–843.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×